The Darkwood pack
The Darkwood pack contains the main antagonists of the series. Although Northwood spends most of the series believing that the pack consists almost entirely of evil wolves, this is actually very untrue; in reality, the pack has had a consistent line of bad Alphas, along with other evil wolves in choice positions. Nevertheless, the pack is powerful, and they remain a very real threat throughout the entire series. They usually remain a much larger pack than that of their main adversaries, although as more of them are killed, the numbers begin to even out. Territory Darkwood also lives in the thick forest area of Luporum, south of the river and of Northwood. Much less is known about their territory than about Northwood's, but it seems to look very much the same. One major difference is that Darkwood has no major rivers other than the one that forms their border, so the desire for a drink often brings them to that one, which can potentially cause trouble when they are noticed by particularly aggressive Northwood wolves. The pack itself stays near the center of the territory, in a less thick part of the forest - they are not together as Northwood is, but more spread out. Individual wolves are usually on their own to find a place, while the Alpha stays in a cave. History Many years ago, before the formation of the Darkwood pack, the forest area of Luporum was very different, mainly in the respect that it contained many packs - five, to be exact, all of which were, for the most part, peaceful. The trouble came not from these packs, but from a young female wolf named Phantom. Born to a group of rogues, Phantom learned from a young age to be tough and brutal; however, she was also different from the other rogues. Instead of settling into a life as a rogue, terrorizing whatever random pack wolves strayed from the mass, she became much more power-hungry. Gradually, she began to command the respect of other rogues - first her own group, and then others as well. She finally formed a large enough group that she considered it a pack, even though it was different from almost all others; she also took a mate and bore pups. The pack - which she officially christened "Darkwood" - swelled in size until it was at least twice the size of the ones around. With this accomplished, Phantom moved on to the next part of her power-hungry plan: she began launching attacks on the packs. Having lived in peace for so long, they were unprepared for any attack. Darkwood eliminated three of the two packs. The remaining two tried to rally against her, but by now many more rogues had noticed what she was doing and joined to her cause. The packs put up a good fight, but Darkwood ultimately won, and thus dominated the entire forest south of the mountains. After Phantom died, her strongest pup took over, and so it continued for each generation. Book One Darkwood is the sole dominant pack during this book, as led by Shade, Phantom's descendant. Confident in their power, they nevertheless try to eliminate Northwood - but more for fun than because they really feel threatened. They treat it as a game.